


Self (ish)

by Anonymous



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Dysfunctional Friendships, Gen, It's just Lanque being Lanque, Past Relationship(s), Substance Abuse, Suggestive language, and- in a surprising twist- Bronya being VERY Bronya
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:53:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Movement comes to those who hear the music, and change comes to those strong enough to bear it.In other words: Lanque isn't always a pain in the ass on purpose, and Bronya doesn't always lead by example.
Relationships: Lanque Bombyx & Bronya Ursama, Past ?????? Elwurd/Bronya Ursama
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Anonymous





	Self (ish)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first time writing Lanque being as nasty as he is in canon, so please let me know if I got to heavy-handed with it (or not heavy handed enough)!
> 
> You're going to have to suspend your disbelief just a little for this first chapter; you'll see my plans slowly coming to fruition >:3c

For the record, Elwurd was the one who passed you the Hennessey.

Liquor and music thrum through you. It gets easier every second to surrender entirely to the movement and the heat of the bodies around you. 

Dancing, like poetry, has no right or wrong technique. Either you're good, or you're not. You have the flow, or you don't. 

In this way, it suits you to let go: art becomes instinct, movement becomes self.

_ Fuck yes. _ You are so fucking faded, it's unbelievable. 

A little puff puff pass, a little shots shots shots: you fade away, memories of you and senses of self both lost to this point beyond time and space. Not that it's difficult to cut it all loose;  _ Lanque _ is as transient as any mask you wear. He floats out of your limbs with your movements, and he slips out of your throat with the music. You keep tenuous hold of him between your teeth with pressure like a held-back scream.

It feels like, suddenly, you have a story to tell.  _ Many _ stories, in fact, all of them yours to tell and none of them about you.

You consider changing your name again. You consider cutting your hair. Anything to make you different. Whatever helps you get away.

Something catches your attention from the corner of your eye. You deflate. All good moods must end, and reality rushes at you in the form of a five-foot-six, pissed-off jadeblood.

_ Bronya _ . Elwurd looks thrilled from her spot leaned against the table. Or maybe she's just that blasted.

Fuck. This feels familiar.

It never ceases to amaze you how Bronya can look so simultaneously  _ stern _ towards you,  _ withering _ towards Elwurd, and  _ indifferent _ to the rest of the nameless cast of the party.

You wonder if that's a quality Bronya hatched with- an unusual skill set for an unusual girl in an unusual caste- or if she learned it alongside her lessons in being a killjoy.

She's shouting something at you, so still and  _ surely _ in control as if she can refuse to acknowledge the fury hidden in the lines of her face. But you see it plain as day, and how could you resist acknowledging it? After all, fury and you are on very intimate speaking terms.

It's too loud in here, and she's too quiet. Speech in this space parses better when you're closer together.

So you walk to her. And you lean in: a new attitude for a new life in the second person.

"Live a little," you say. You feel like you could snort; what you're doing is undoubtedly closer to dying, and you like it that way. But you know Bronya; temptation doesn't work like that in her world.

"Lanque Bombyx," she grinds out through a scowl. Yet still, the party swells and flows around you. In this space together, speaking quietly, you're alone.

You sigh with as much dramatic flair as you can muster. Is she seriously going to do this?  _ Now? _ Reality is still blunted at the edges, and you're not ready to be someone other than this random, jade-blooded party boy.

You sway. Bronya is scolding you, probably, but you're fucked up enough that it's easy to tune her out. At some point in the past, you used to find her numbered lists helpful. Stress-free. Right now, though, the only numbers you care about are beats, lines, stanzas, drugs, drink,  _ sex _ .

Those numbers fill the space between you, drawing and repelling, tilting and spinning you both in circles.

"Not too uptight to dance, I hope," you interrupt on her third point, something about your responsibility and honor as a jadeblood. "Let's live a little before our lives are over."

You grab her, persuading her limbs to loosen. She's pissed, held stiff and sharp. But with the press of the crowd around her, there's no choice but to move. After all: dancing comes naturally to those that hear the music. You're not so jaded to think that Bronya has lost everything that makes her feel alive. A soul for a seat, a personality for politics? No, even your world is not so black and white.

Bronya's not persuaded, not yet. But you see now: she could get there. It's a possibility.

"I hear you used to do this," you whisper, letting the words and the gloss on your lips stick like a spiderweb to her ear. You glance over toward Elwurd, who's made her reappearance against the culinary block doorway. "Was it with her?" You lead the dance until Bronya can catch a glimpse at Elwurd. "Was it like me?"

She pushes you away. "We need to go home right. Now."

" _ We _ ?  _ You _ are the only one who needs to do anything right now." She's stopped. All eyes are on you.

Ugh, you must have raised your voice or something. All you can do is try to dance around her and let the stares die down. "What, pray tell, are you planning to do? Give me a lower score in our peer review? Face it." She starts moving again, pressed from the crowd and moved solely by her own vexation. You lean in for a whisper that could almost parse as intimate. "You've got nothing on me."

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you realize it's not mere petty nastiness. It's the truth. Because the reality is: in a world where your choices are drinking piss from a fancy glass or going straight to the source, you decide to die thirsty.

Call you high maintenance. 

Bronya, for her part, doesn't react quite like you expect her to. Which is to say she reacts at all. Her hands clutch your biceps, and she looks straight through you. Some small, wretched part of you clings to that feeling of being held still and seen in earnest. That part of you that, up until now, you assumed died along with your grubhood.

Is this what Bronya inspires in others? Is this how she came to lead: because others follow?

"I'm sick of fighting. I'm  _ tired _ of anger. One: you know why I'm here. Two: you know how this ends. Three: you are still under my care, and I am responsible for you."

"Your  _ care _ ? You mean your  _ command? _ "

"You've been neglecting your duties as a jadeblood and the self-care that propagates stable mental health!"

"I've been  _ neglecting  _ is to give a shit," you shake her hands off of you. "Haven't you all noticed we  _ all _ run away? That those of us under your  _ care, _ " you spit, "do everything in our power to escape it? Daraya lives in her head, Lynera lives in a fucking fantasy world, even Wanshi would rather pretend to be a purrbeast than a jade."

"And don't I always follow you! To wherever it is you go, I'm there!" She stops herself with a, presumably, centering inhale. "One: I am always available when you need me. Two: I never leave you behind. Three-"

_ "One,"  _ you interrupt. "You keep secrets from us. Two: you may never leave us behind but you  _ always _ let us down. Three: face it, you are incapable of acting as both our leader and our friend. You don't know the first beat of the poetry that moves me."

Elwurd approaches with three shots right as Bronya deflates. You shoot her a sharp glare as if that could ever be enough to stop her. Sometimes you wonder if Elwurd knows the difference between hoping and tempting. Hell, if she can't navigate the wigglerhood simplicity of love and hate, maybe she is just that naive. 

"It's your job as our  _ leader _ ," she grimaces as you bite the word out, "to work with us.  _ Learn _ from us. We live your life day after day. It's past time you lived ours."

"Been there, done that! Right, Bron?" Elwurd throws her arm around Bronya's shoulder and claps her on the bicep. There's that futile hope again. No amount of Elwurd's charm can make this situation anything better than uncomfortable.

"Right..."

"No way," like any good predator, you pounce, smirking in anticipation. Your favorite show: some bad behavior. "Show me."

Elwurd passes you one of the shots, and you down them in unison.

And, in unison, you turn towards Bronya.

Two against one; another game of numbers. 

Bronya takes the shot.

For the first time since you've known Bronya, you finally win.

___

Surrender comes naturally to you. For Bronya, it's not even a word in her lexicon.

Bronya with one shot under her suspenders is brighter. Bronya with two shots is louder. And Bronya with three shots is dancing not five feet away from you with form and motion you've never seen before. Not from her, anyway.

Elwurd has promised to be on her best behavior. Hope, meet temptation. You notice the clench of her jaw, and how her arms have crossed over her chest as she holds back.

You smirk at her posture. At least you know for sure Elwurd is as good as her word. 

"Is literally holding herself back is helping you figuratively let go?"

"Can it, Bombyx."

"Plenty of other pussy at this party,"

"Don't I know it," she says, giving you the side-eye. "I'm standing next to one right now."

She laughs as you balk. 

"Come on, kid, how many other trolls here brought their lusus to the party?"

"How many other trolls can say they convinced Bronya Ursama to let loose?" you counter.

She scoffs.

"If you think  _ you're _ responsible for that, maybe I should stop selling to you."

"You're right," you sneer. "A little push from you, and she's found all her bad habits again."

Elwurd looks away, bringing her pinky to her mouth with a frown. She bites off a bit of skin hanging off the edge as her brow furrows.

The small part of you that has yet to completely let go of Lanque hopes it hurts. And the small part of you that Bronya found tonight is already drafting your apology text, knowing that you and Elwurd will always be friends. Knowing that you both like it this way.

You are, for the time being, spectacularly sober. The choice was between blackmail material or partying with the person who sees herself as your lusus. The decision was easy; the execution was not.

Bronya saunters up to the two of you.

"Lanque," she says, with a smirk so insincere you're on guard at the mere sight of it. "I thought we were living a little?"

Her voice is almost nasty. Elwurd laughs.

"Always knew you had it in you, Bron."

"Bron _ ya _ ," Bronya corrects gently. "And Lanque?"

She calls you, voice so serious and gentle it hurts.

"I'm living in your world, aren't I? One: I've had the liquor. Two: I've done the dancing. Three: I'm looking for company. Come join me." She holds her hand out, achingly tender.

You see now that your brand of nastiness will never hurt more than what Bronya can dish out. When you slice and cut and whip with your words, it takes little precision. The wounds you inflict generally heal with time.

But Bronya? This brand of "is she, isn't she" sincerity? This person she might be but isn't? That's _real_ nastiness. It's the kind of pain that sticks with a person. 

Elwurd sees it, too, whistling low under her breath before sipping out of her solo cup.

"Boss's orders," she says, slapping you on the arm.

"My boss, or yours?" you snap back, and she laughs. _'Letting loose,'_ Elwurd mouths. But Bronya stands still between you both, glancing from face to face before falling into a fit of giggles all her own.

Then she grabs your hand, and you have no choice but to follow.

She pulls you into a chaste dance. This is not a social situation you're prepared for, but who ever said that you can't improvise in a pinch?

You get in her personal bubble. Not close enough to be weird or anything- it is still Bronya, after all- but close enough that you feel alone with her again.

"So.  _ Lanque _ ," Bronya is speaking directly into your ear now. "What is it you wanted to show me? The first beat of the poetry that moves you, is that it?"

"Elwurd said you used to do this," you pull back a bit to see her body language. She nods, and it's honest. "Why'd you stop?"

"The same reason you will," she says.

"I sincerely doubt that."

"Then maybe the reasons we started are different," she smiles as she grabs two more shots. To say you're disoriented is an understatement. You're lost, which you suppose was the goal all along. But it wasn't supposed to go like this. "Though I  _ sincerely doubt that. _ " With that, she takes her shot through a smirk. The same smirk she's seen on your face countless times.

You take yours, if only because you're cued to.

"Really? You're going to tell me that you hated being hatched jade? That you would have done anything to break the chains of your caste?"

"Yes," she states, so simply that you can't help but bristle.

"So why did you put yourself in the position to keep us there?"

"You know nothing of my motivations," she pulls you out of the way of a passing parade of clowns, then looks you in the eye. "One: I found my purpose. Two: it is none of your business. Three: if you got to know me, maybe you could be a part of it."

Not your business?

"And," she continues, "there's real joy in being a jade, too."

"Rip that off one of our posters?" you ask her. Still, a smile finds its slow way onto your face. You put on a pious voice: "purpose stems from J-O-Y. Jades, others, yourself."

She snorts, holding back a laugh as she recounts, "I remember the old head jade used to joke about that... what was it she said?" Bronya snaps her fingers as the memory comes back to her. "Success stems from J-O-Y. One: j-rudgery. Two: obedience. Three: yes-ma'am-ing."

The two of you collapse into laughter. 

"She wasn't wrong," Bronya says with a wistful smile, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "Making a difference means bearing the load of the hard part for a while." She grabs you by the arm, painfully serious in only the way the drunk can be. "One: the work you put in reflects the outcome you get out. Two: all good things come to those who wait. Three..." She looks you hard in the eye. "The world is very resistant to change."

Oh, she's good. But you see what she's doing, and you don't know if you hate more that she's doing it in the first place or that you almost didn't catch it.

"Bronya Ursama," you say, mock-scandalized. "Are you having fun with me?"

She crosses her arms behind her back, swaying only enough to be seen in the motion of her hair. "Is it working?"

"Ditch the morality lesson," you let your face fall from playful to sharp. But what else is there to say?

The two of you fall back into an awkward silence. Well, you're feeling awkward, anyway. Bronya takes it in stride. Damn her. Damn parties. You're sticking out like two sore, jade-blooded thumbs. You fit into this scene better when you were having fun.

"You're getting trickier," you say. You leave your voice neutral; let her make her own meaning.

Bronya is still Bronya. "You were right. Part of being a good leader is learning from those you lead."

"It's true then? Imitation, flattery, and all the rest?"

"What? Oh, I was talking about Karako." She stifles a laugh as your face must visibly fall. Something about her voice is different. More fun, maybe. Less... tight. Girlish.

You hate that. "Figures. Even the littlest of us is a bomb waiting to go off."

"Maybe," Bronya says. You pass her the shot this time. She's still drinking; you're not sure how. "Jades must not interfere with nature and nurture." You can see her organizing her points into an easily numbered list, squinting with concentration. Then she shrugs it off. "He'll succeed because he's mine."

But you can't tell who she's talking to, or if she even knows she said it aloud.

And you can't tell if that twist in your gut is because you believe her, or because you know she's never said it about you.

"Even a bomb with no fuse can blow up," you say.

"What?" She starts laughing. "Lanque, that's-" she interrupts herself with laughter. At least you know for sure you're not the only one that's tipsy. "-one: you are being ridiculous. Two: you are being very dramatic. Three: we learned about false analogies just last week in our logic and rhetoric school feeding."

"Excuse you, I can be as dramatic and ridiculous as I want outside of work hours. You can’t stop me."

"Inside of our designated work hours, you are going to fail that test," she says, shaking her head but still smiling. "Come on," she says as the beat changes. "I'll get it out of you yet."

With a tilted smile, she leads you out to the midst of the party again. You see what she's doing; you doubt your logic and rhetoric test is going to be so obvious tomorrow night.

But you still let her lead, because leading is apparently what she does.

___

The party continues. You are hauntingly, achingly,  _ sickeningly _ drunk. 

Bronya is... still Bronya, somehow. If she were anyone else, you might suspect she's slowly poisoning one of the houseplants. But even she's not tricky enough to fake taking a shot right in front of you.

The sight of her dances and sways in your vision. You grab hold of her and find she was standing still.

"You're drunk," she says. "It's time to go."

"No," you say to both. But you know the party is winding down; Elwurd left without a word. You think she might have been irrelevant to your personal narrative tonight, but you couldn't help but make note of her. 

Wasn't there was something you wanted to say to her?  _ Fuck you, _ perhaps. Or maybe  _ I'm sorry. _ Same thing. You'll remember in the morning. 

"Elwurd left," you say without a point, knowing there isn't one.

"I know," Bronya says. You sneer; what else is there to do?

"Is that why it's so weird between you two?" Slowly, you see you're circling a sharp and painful point. It's almost hit you; you just have to find the words.

"What are you talking about," she says, still girlish at the edges.

"Once you're pushed into a box with the same dozen people, it's hard to let go of the new stuff and shove yourself back in and replace the lid." Almost got it. Just a few more spirals around this... Fuck, what was the metaphor you used? You're laughing and you don't know why.

" _ Let go? _ " She says. "You've never had to let go," she says with humor in her voice. 

"What," you, in all your drunk eloquence, reply. 

"You've  _ never _ had to let go. It's not hard. It's impossible." 

"You are being very dramatic." 

"One: I can be as dramatic and ridiculous as I want outside of work hours," you smirk as she echos you. "Two-"

"Oh, enough," you say. Then you just walk away, wandering around the hive, taking a piss in an ivy. Because you don't know where the bathroom is and you barely recognize the sky you're under. 

You're absolutely stalling. This whole situation has been... weird. A moment of introspection is all you need.

Or, failing that, a moment of sobriety.

You don't know how Bronya just seems to float through the harsh lines of defined social structure the way she does. There are three things to do at parties: one, dancing. Two, drinking. Three, fucking. Who talks to be heard? Who makes points?

But here, alone with your thoughts, you allow yourself to mull her words over.  _ J-rudgery, _ you think with a smirk. 

If Bronya wormed her way into your head, why not fight back? 

You find her at a table with a punch bowl. It's the kind of table that's requisite imagery for party scenes, and she's the kind of girl that doesn't quite fit. She picks at the table cloth. 

Three things coalesce perfectly, leading you into the next act: the party, winding down (and how you're aware that people might overhear you). The liquor, leaving your blood and settling in your bladder (you'll find the ablutionblock on your way out). And, lastly, the time you had to yourself. You aren't on your best behavior, exactly, but you might fool passers-by.

Beside Bronya, you find a clean, dry patch of the tablecloth to lean against. You cross your arms. You hit her with a sideways glance.

"What is it that you're so afraid of?" you ask her. She snorts, sipping from a glass of water. "No, really. There's got to be a reason you'd rather be our leader than our friend."

She answers so quickly that for a moment, you think someone else answered for her. "Revolution," she says. "Chaos."

Maybe Bronya is drunker than you realized; it's not like you've ever experienced this side of her. It's possible she's not drunk at all. You don't know which one scare you more.

"I see now, it's unavoidable," she sips as if to gather her thoughts. "We jades live our lives by games of unyielding calculus. Should one caste suffer so others can live free?"

Her face has taken on the ashen quality that you've only seen once. When that one jade died.

"What about one-to-one?" you ask. "One jade suffers here for another jade to rise in the ranks. Once lives a painful leadership so another three can live their painful freedoms. What does the math say about that?"

"I don't know," she says.

"Is this where the word 'jaded' comes from, do you think?" you ask, if only because her stricken face looks so close to how you feel. Bronya gives a wobbly smile; you think she likes word-play. You take note of that.

She looks at you with an undivided attention only the very tired and very drunk can give. You've never seen a jadeblood's face look so unenticingly green. 

"It's time to go," she says. And this time, you believe her.

___

Bronya's slung across your back; watching her walk and wobble around in your dizzy vision was making you feel sick.

You can feel teeth against your skin; she's smiling against your neck.

"What's so funny?" you ask.

"It's been so long since we used to do this."

"What exactly do you think it is we're doing?"

"Having fun. Talking. Together."

You scoff.

"I don't believe you're drunk enough to believe I'm having fun right now."

She doesn't respond, giggling lightly against that spot where she smiled.

You wipe your hand across your mouth. Not because you're smiling or anything.

"I'm gonna get you with something someday," she says, poking you in the shoulder. The angle is awkward; she succeeds anyway.

You jostle her a little instead and she groans, begging to be let down. And you walk in silence for a while before she speaks up again.

"I was so focused on being your leader, I forgot to be your friend," she says softly beside you.

It occurs to you: you  _ were _ friends once. She used to be sly, doing this thing with the fallen stalactites... In fact, you used to suspect she cheated her way to the top.

But watching her walk and stumble, twice as ready for whatever is next and likely twice as drunk, you think maybe it's as simple as she  _ was _ hatched for it.

You wonder if the head jade drew her name from a ceremonial vase, or curved the letters by hand on a sheet of paper. Left her name by candlelight and whispered the syllables like a benediction.

For now, in this space between forgetting it all and forgiving as you forge forward for lack of something better to do, you can leave your name behind...

"We could have been friends," Bronya says, with sudden melancholy.

"We aren't."

"I know."

...But Bronya is still Bronya. 

She walks a few paces ahead of you. And she leaves you ever so slightly behind, adrift in the world that will never wait for you.

___

You finally catch up to her, if only because the moment the entrance to the caverns is in view, she slumps down against a cluster of rocks.

"Comfy?" you ask. She only responds with a sleepy groan and a mumble. "Figures. Always knew being the head jade came with a touch of masochism."

But it just doesn't hit right without a response.

The caverns are quiet this close to sunrise. This has always been your favorite part about coming home; it's peaceful. No lususes scruffling, no grubs chittering or clicking or crying. Only you and the echo of your footsteps against the sides of the cave.

Bronya's room is close-by. And, as usual, unlocked. You forego undressing her and shoving her into her coon, opting instead to deposit her onto the floor and roll her gently into the mysterious grubby-pool of slime she keeps in the center of her room. You do take her shoes off, though, and leave them by the door.

Just as you're about to leave, Bronya calls your name. It's soft enough that the part of you that wants to leave turns around, and said with so much authority that you go to her regardless of your wishes.

She has this look on her face, hard to define... almost terrifying. 

For a moment, you think she'll bring her hand up to your face. Maybe she'll pap you, pacify you. Maybe it will make you mad again, and at least that would be familiar. 

This is going to be so awkward in the morning. 

But she doesn't pap you. She straightens your tie and then pukes into her hair instead.

Figures.

___

You wake up, mouth vile and brain so tight in your head that you can barely see, at an improbable 9pm.

Which isn't sleeping in by much- most of the ceruleans you know would just be falling into coon by now- but sleeping in by even a minute is very rarely done in these caverns.

Oh fuck. Bronya. Did you kill her? You rush to wipe the slime off your body, feet still slippery against the floor.

You hope to whatever deity exists on Alternia that every rainbow drinker novel you read had some grain of truth. Jades survive. 

You survive everything.

___

She's still in her slime kiddy pool. Fuck. You really did kill her.

Maybe you should take Karako to church tomorrow, take your chances with the clowns. Because when you take a step back, the humor in the situation clenches you by the gut: you're the next oldest jade. Head jade responsibility defaults to you until you can get in touch with the nunnery.

From all around you, a low groan seems to reverberate all throughout the caverns. Great. And now the daywalkers are here. This is what happens when you sleep in as head jade, you guess.

But just as slowly as the groaning starts, it slowly shifts into a familiar sound. "Nnngghhhhanque."

Just when you had your escape all planned out, Bronya makes her debut back to the world of the living.

"Lanque," she repeats, more in control of herself. "I feel terrible."

"Never had a hangover?" you ask her.

"Been a while," she groans. "One... oh, boo to that."

You startle. 

"Listen. Lynera already knows she's in charge today."

"So quickly," you sneer. "I see the empress isn't the only one the head jade communicates with via clamshell."

"Stop. Listen to me," she grabs your hand, almost startlingly in control of herself. A clump of slime slides down her hair and clings to her jaw. "I need you to cover for me."

"Cover? For  _ you? _ "

"I have my own duties to attend to," she says. Then she interrupts you before you can interject. "And it's not your business. Tonight is the right night for it, that's all you need to know. One: my experience as head jade allows me to make these quick judgments. Two: my knowledge as the oldest jade reminds me that I need to get this done. Three..." She stops, something dancing in her eyes that you've only seen in Karako's. If it were anyone else, you might call it playful. "If the work isn't done today, we all work overtime tomorrow."

"Fine," you spit. "But you owe me."

Right as you're about to, who knows, shake on it? She brings her hand up to her mouth and gropes around for the garbage can you left by her coon last night.

You kick a demonstration pail (for education purposes only, you highly fucking doubt) within her reach before turning on your heel. And you leave, doing nothing to hide the devious smile on your face.

For tonight, you're free.

___

Daraya, too, has enjoyed the three extra hours of sleep.

You find her in the familiar cranny she always crams herself into when she doesn't feel like working; she's got the lighter, and you've got the blunt.

"Workless Wednesdays," she says, chuckling as you stutter and cough from the smoke. "Right on."

"You know the jades. Most of them will do the work for us. Bronya's got her fingers in the nook of every crazy bitch that lives here."

"You mean you?" She says, then she snorts at your expression. "You're the one covering for her."

"I'm no snitch."

"Bitches over snitches?" she says, voice tight as if she's incredulous. The smoking has done nothing for your hangover but wonders for your mood; when she laughs at her own dumb joke, you join her.

You watch her bring the last of the blunt to her mouth as her laughter dies down. "Yeah," she says, suddenly thoughtful. "Gonna be a shit show with that hell bitch running this place, though."

You snort. "Why does _she_ have to run this place?" you ask. "The only people who know Bronya's out for the day are me, you, her, and Bronya herself."

Daraya tilts her head at you, signature apathy lingering at the creases of her face.

"Could be me," you clarify.

"Like that's going to be any better." She starts to stand, and you join her. "Work is still work, regardless of-" Daraya pitches her voice in a shrill imitation of Lynera, "- _who's holding the whip._ Since when were you interested in the responsibility anyway?"

"Responsibility? This is proving a _point_ , Daraya." God, you're going to ace that logic and rhetoric exam. "At least you could get out of here with me in charge," you tempt her. "Go and see that tealblood you've been messaging from the husktop in the commons."

She blushes, but brushes you off with a  _ whatever _ .

It's not her fault she doesn't get it. Daraya is still young; she hasn't learned true apathy yet.

But she'll see. It could be anyone. It could be  _ you. _


End file.
